


Heaven in This Hell

by firecat



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Bechdel Test, Bisexuality, Canon Temporary Character Death, Celebrations, Competence Kink, Consent, Crushes, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dating, Demons, Dream Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Frottage, Grieving, Heartbreak, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Making Out, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Character Death, Multi, Mutual Pining, Nipple Play, Orgasm, Pining, Polyamory Negotiations, Roommates, Sleepy Sex, Slight Canon Divergence, Threesome - F/F/F, Voice Kink, Watching Someone Sleep, happy crying, tribes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26266339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecat/pseuds/firecat
Summary: The human world is rubbing off on Mazikeen. She has started developing feelings for humans.Threeof them. What's a demon warrior to do?
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Mazikeen, Ella Lopez/Mazikeen, Linda Martin/Mazikeen (Lucifer TV), Linda Martin/Mazikeen/Ella Lopez
Comments: 39
Kudos: 42
Collections: pine4pine 2020





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nowrunalong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowrunalong/gifts).



> “Make Mazikeen pine,” you said. Fun challenge! Hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Set between Season 1, episode 8 ("Et Tu, Doctor?") and Season 2, episode 16 ("God Johnson"). No spoilers for later episodes.
> 
> Slight canon divergence. 
> 
> See endnote for description of a few scenes with mildly dubious consent.

Mazikeen of Hell rose to become the greatest of the archdemons and the left hand of Lucifer, the ruler of Hell himself. She struck awe, fear, and desire into everyone she encountered. She had the powerful at her feet, at her mercy. In battle, she could crush any opponent.

And then she followed Lucifer to Los Angeles and become his…bartender.

Mazikeen no longer strode into battle with an army of lesser demons at her back. She no longer meted out torture daily. She poured drinks and got laid a lot and mingled with the city’s elite, and it was fun for a while. 

But gradually she got homesick for Hell. She missed being important. She missed being needed. She missed kicking ass. OK, she still got to kick some ass, but bouncing inebriated nightclub patrons wasn’t the same as leading an army. 

She knew why Lucifer had done it. Hell could be a depressing and lonely place to rule, quite frankly. All those souls endlessly caught in their own guilt. Demons constantly plotting. Running a nightclub in L.A. instead — the shallowest of venues in the shallowest of cities, some would say — let Lucifer cut loose for a change. A party every night, his bed never empty. 

Maze tried to wait it out. Lucifer had had silly pet projects before. He’d always gotten tired of them eventually and gone back to Hell.

But then the Detective came into the picture, and everything started changing. 

Maze didn’t like it one little bit.

Lucifer’s new — mortality, vulnerability? — scared her. And their relationship was changing. She felt him drawing away from her. 

And she drew away in return, feeling a need to be self-protective. Feeling empty, purposeless. She’d never felt those things before. 

She began plotting with Amenadiel on ways to get Lucifer back to Hell, whether he wanted to go or not. 

~~~

One day in the middle of it all, she met Linda. 

Linda Martin was Lucifer’s therapist. Why was he seeing a therapist? Because it was what everyone did in L.A., Maze supposed. 

Linda was part of the problem. Linda was in favor of Lucifer’s changing. In favor of his “getting in touch with his emotions.” Which meant human emotions, about human problems. (In Hell, rage and a passion for meting out justice were the only emotions you needed.)

The day she met Linda, Maze was, as usual, in a bad mood. So she was rude to Linda. ”It won't end well,” she told Linda, referring to her therapy-for-sex exchange with Lucifer. “You’ll end up like all the others. Trash left by the side of the road.” 

And Linda, this annoying human? _Linda stood up for herself._

“I find people who are rude usually feel powerless in their own lives,” she said mildly. “Terrified of not being in control. But that’s not you, I’m sure.”

Not only did she stand up for herself, she put her annoying mortal finger right on the problem Maze was having. 

Maze didn’t have control any more. 

Then, to make matters worse, Lucifer found out about the plot. 

He wasn’t exactly wrong that she’d betrayed him. So stupid of her to collude with Amenadiel. But how was Maze to know that Amenadiel had hired an _assassin_ to kill Lucifer? She wanted Lucifer to go back to Hell of his own accord. OK, she wasn’t opposed to some arm-twisting being involved, but getting him there by _murdering_ him was a really stupid idea. She’d never have agreed to sneak and spy for Amenadiel if she’d known he was gonna take it _that_ far. 

“We’re through!” Lucifer told her.

He’d said that before, of course, and changed his mind, but Maze didn’t know this new Lucifer very well. What if he really meant it this time? This break, temporary or not, didn’t help Maze’s problem at all. She felt even more adrift, purposeless. 

It still took Maze some time to decide to seek out Linda herself. 

That didn’t go very well either.

“I need to figure out how to be more normal,” she said to Linda. “So tell me what to do.”

“That’s not how this works,” Linda told her.

“Do I need to sleep with you too?”

It wasn’t unusual for her to feel overcome by lust in the presence of a beautiful person like Linda. What was unusual about the encounter? Two things. 

One was that Linda had turned her down, despite clearly being attracted to her. She remembered the way Linda became flustered when she crawled over the coffee table, licking her lips. The way Linda stared hungrily at her mouth, even while Linda’s mouth was saying “I’m good, I’m good.”

The second thing was that she kept thinking about Linda afterwards. On the rare occasion someone refused Maze, she wrote them off and went to find satisfaction somewhere else. But this time? She found herself back in Linda’s office, suggesting they go out for a drink. 

And so now they had a “friendship.” Whatever that was. Linda kept saying that no, it wasn’t defined by “hanging out with someone, but without the fun sex parts.” But Maze still wasn’t sure what it _was._ She was just…doing it. 

Granted, it _was_ fun in some ways. Linda was funny as Hell, and snarky, and had lots of insights to share about humans, which Maze knew she needed if she was gonna have to stay here for a while. 

And Linda was _so_ hot. Maze loved to watch her move, all compact decisiveness in feminine tight wrap dresses and heels and sexy librarian glasses. “Unwrapping Linda” became one of her go-to fantasies. 

The part where Linda was hot was both fun and not-fun, actually. “Appreciation at a distance” wasn’t in Maze’s substantial collection of favorite kinks. She liked to appreciate hands on. And in. Still, thoughts of Linda often entertained her at night, with her toy, or someone else’s hand, between her legs.

~~~

Chloe Decker, “the Detective,” as Lucifer called her, was the crux of the problem. 

Lucifer was obsessed with her, in ways he’d rarely been with anyone.

It wasn’t sexual. Well, it was _always_ sexual with Lucifer, but that wasn’t the primary driver of this obsession. True, Chloe had refused to fuck him. That was rare, and it sometimes ate at him when it happened. But that in itself wasn’t enough to obsess him with someone for long. This time, Lucifer was staying obsessed.

For some reason he’d appointed Chloe his personal conscience and advisor on how to live his life. Of course, he constantly argued with, mocked, and ignored her advice. But still. Maze was used to having that role herself, so she wasn’t pleased.

But when Chloe was on a mission to track down a murderer putting Lucifer in danger, Maze felt honor-bound to back her up. 

She didn’t expect to be so _affected._

She didn’t expect to be _moved_ by the masterful way Chloe handled herself when the shooting started. Maze was a slut for competence, and she had to admit Chloe had the makings of a warrior in her. 

She didn’t expect to end up under Chloe on the floor during the shootout. She didn’t expect Chloe to feel soft and hard in all the right places. 

And Chloe was wrapped up so tight. Maze had scoffed about her obsession with work before. But now Maze kept thinking about what lay under that. How Chloe held the promise of so much more, if one could only get to the chewy center. 

Reluctantly, Maze admitted to herself that she understood why Lucifer was drawn to Chloe. 

That was the real reason she’d agreed to Lucifer’s wager. Who cares about an old Corvette anyway? 

“You need to take the Detective out and have fun. Three drinks should do the trick,” he said.

She hoped getting a few drinks into Chloe would go part of the way of getting the wrapper off. 

And it did. But it did so much more.


	2. Chapter 2

Maze lies sleepless in her bed, staring into the dark. She’s having feelings that she’s never had before. For _humans._ _Three_ of them. 

Ella, always going in for the hug and the daiquiri, her chirpiness hiding an enthusiasm for violence that Maze finds delicious.

Linda. She already wanted Linda of course. But her sultry voice that night drove Maze’s desire for her to new heights, sending shivers down her spine and into other parts of her. She wants Linda saying “One-eight-hundred Professor Feelgood” as her ringtone.

And Chloe. When she finally told her sob story and let her new tribe take care of her with excessive amounts of tequila? She was hilarious! She mussed up her hair in a way that made her look deliciously fuckable. She gladly made a karaoke fool of herself. She mocked Lucifer in the most delightful way. Maze regretted that she was laughing so hard at the time, she forgot to video it to torment him with later.

And once again, Chloe’s competence made Maze wet. Even after she’d had so many tequilas she could barely stand, Chloe still noticed the guy’s hand stamp from across the bar, and ended up getting crucial clues on the case she was working.

Best of all? Chloe gave Maze the opportunity to do the thing she loved best. Or maybe second best. She never could make up her mind about that. 

Maze got to kick ass. Maze got to protect her tribe. Maze got to do stick-fighting with broken pool cues. 

“To tribes,” the four of them had chorused. Is that what these emotions are? Feeling like part of a tribe? 

And yet, Maze suspects that isn’t the right answer. She knows tribes are people who do things together. These feelings she is having, they seem to focus on one person at a time. And they don’t end with fucking. After she is finished fantasizing about the fucking, she finds herself fantasizing about cuddling. And _making breakfast together._

There’s no doubt about it now. Humanity is rubbing off on her. And she is terrified. 

~~~

“I wasn’t totally faking it,” Maze tells an angry and betrayed Chloe the next day. “I wouldn’t kick ass for just anyone. OK, fine, I would. But this time it was…sweeter.”

Maze isn’t often given to understatement, but what she really feels? She doesn’t have the words to describe it. 

And Maze has somehow agreed to be roommates with the accursedly hot detective. What will it do to her, to actually live with Chloe? 

Deciding to be roommates with Chloe is, of course, Lucifer’s fault. Because he told her no. Repeatedly. And the urge to defy him, now that he isn’t her boss any more, is too great to resist. 

At least she’d turned down _that_ wager. The one about which one of them could seduce her first.

Which is also odd, come to think of it. She’d have taken that wager in a heartbeat before. About pretty much anyone. But now, the idea of treating Chloe like an object that way makes her feel… _uncomfortable._

Nevertheless, Maze is fully on board with the idea of seducing Chloe herself, outside of any wagers about it. Surely it will be easy enough if they live together? And then the cuddling and making breakfast together, the parts that are so new and confusing, would follow naturally. 

Maze installs a sex swing in the living room. 

Maze wears the slinkiest, tiniest, leatheriest clothes in her wardrobe. 

Maze babysits Trixie. 

Maze listens to Chloe talk about her feelings. Well. Pretends to listen. 

None of it works. In fact, most of it backfires spectacularly. Babysitting Trixie seems to hold some promise. But Trixie is a little too young to play matchmaker. And sometimes she’s an inhibiting factor. Given how humans protect their offspring from any hint of what brings them into existence in the first place, Maze can’t very well answer Trixie’s question, “What would you love to do, Maze?” with “Your mother, over and over again, before breakfast.” 

Although Maze is mostly focused on Chloe for now, she hasn’t stopped thinking about Linda and Ella. When she feels particularly frustrated, she thinks about seducing one of them. Maybe that would make the ache for Chloe less excruciating. 

But then Lucifer has to go and scare Linda with his Devil face. Linda won’t see Maze now. Won’t even open her door to her.

“Is it really so bad, that I’m a demon?” she asks Linda.

“Please go,” is Linda’s only response.

As for Ella, Maze just never seems to see her. Chloe has shut down her access to the police station via Samantha from the front desk. And too many things are going on to have another girls’ night out.


	3. Chapter 3

“You OK?” Chloe says, in a kind mood for once instead of a distracted or judgemental one.

Maze is not OK. 

“I can’t find the right job. My only friend stopped talking to me.” _I want you and I don’t know what to do with these feelings!_ she does not say.

“How do you know what feels right?” Maze asks Chloe. She doesn’t know whether she means jobs, or people, or both.

“You just know.”

How does Maze make herself feel right to Chloe? How can she convince her?

And then she realizes. Chloe didn’t respond to Lucifer’s sexual magnetism, why should she respond to Maze’s? Maze has to impress Chloe in some other way. Like the way Chloe impressed her. With competence. 

Tracking and subduing Chloe’s suspect, Perry Smith, is so sweet. So is Chloe’s face when she comes back to find the man responsible for her father’s death at Maze’s mercy. Maze loves the mixture of emotions she reads there. Hatred. Satisfaction. Triumph. There’s also pain. Maze doesn’t love that, but she longs to comfort Chloe. Tell her “it’s OK, because now he’ll be punished.” Punishment usually helps with Maze’s pain. 

“I tracked down the scumbag myself. It just _felt right,”_ she tells Chloe. Surely Chloe will understand what she means? What she feels? _I tracked him down because_ you _feel right. Because I want to be someone to you. Your defender and protector. Your lover._

But Chloe doesn’t seem to pick up on what Maze meant. Chloe doesn’t fall into Maze’s arms, head over heels in lust with her competence. 

Maze is upset, but not for long. She’s just found out _hunting humans is a job._ A job that _feels right._ A job that Maze is cut out to do. On Earth. Who knew? 

She has to tell Linda. She wants to celebrate with her… _friend._

Maze suddenly has one clue about what friendship is, other than hanging around with someone, without the fun sex parts. It means wanting to celebrate together. 

Except… _is_ Linda her friend any more? Does friendship include hanging around with demons, sex or no sex? 

Even though Linda rejected her, Maze tries again. “I’m still Maze. What’s changed?” she demands at Linda’s locked door.

Linda finally comes around, and agrees to let Maze buy her a drink. 

That evening, they have more than one drink together. Still, they aren’t drunk. Just...happy. They stay at the neighborhood bar until it closes. As they stroll back to Linda’s office, they pass a pocket park.

“Let’s sit,” Maze suggests, and they sit together on a bench, looking at the city lights, and then looking at each other.

Suddenly Maze desperately wants to say something, but isn’t sure what or how. 

“My friend,” says Linda, placing her hand over Maze’s. “Thank you for helping me get my head out of my ass.”

“There are much better things to have in your ass,” remarks Maze.

Linda laughs. “Indeed.”

Maze looks away. Somehow it seems safer to say it that way. “Linda,” Maze says, “Are there ways of being friends, hanging out with someone, that _do_ include the fun sex parts?”

“Yes, Maze. It’s called being friends with benefits.”

“Benefits!” Maze laughs. Then she looks at Linda again. Linda is looking at the moon. “Linda,” she says. “I would like to benefit _you.”_ And she kisses her.

Linda tenses for a few seconds, then relaxes. But she doesn’t return the kiss, not in a way that matches the desire Maze feels. 

Maze keeps on kissing her, though. 

Maze feels like she’s wading through honey. Because that’s what Linda’s lips taste like. And because of the way she has to move so slowly, so deliberately. As if Linda were a wild animal she is trying to approach.

Little by little, Linda begins to respond. Her hand goes to Maze’s shoulder, then to the back of her neck. A small sigh escapes her mouth.

They’re both startled by a monster truck driving by, bass thumping, horn honking, men’s voices hooting and yelling. They break the kiss.

“I know you’re a demon warrior, Maze,” Linda says, “but we probably shouldn’t be kissing outside in the park at two in the morning.”

“It is a little hard to concentrate,” agrees Maze, although she’s done more in noisier environments. Sometimes she found the background screaming quite a turn-on.

They resume their stroll toward Linda’s office. Linda takes Maze’s hand in hers.

Maze is thunderstruck. She has seen human couples holding hands before, but she’s never done it herself. It seemed boring.

But holding Linda’s hand causes her whole body to tingle. It’s not a sexy feeling exactly. But it’s not a not-sexy feeling either. It’s sort of like the moment she sinks into a hot-tub. Relaxing and stimulating all at once.

Back in Linda’s office, Maze tries to resume the kiss, but Linda stops her.

“Wow,” she says. “I’m really attracted to you, Maze.” She lightly kisses Maze’s forehead. “But if we’re going to change our friendship, I need to take it slowly. I like kissing you. I’d like to do more of that. But I know you are a very sexual pers— demon. Will kissing be enough for you?”

Maze looks at Linda. She tries to wrap her brain around a friendship that is “hanging out, but without the fun sex parts, except kissing.”

“I don’t know,” she tells Linda. “Do you need to go slow because I’m a demon?”

Linda hesitates a bit before answering.

“I don’t think so,” she says. “But — and I worry you might not like this — I think it has something to do with Lucifer.”

Maze’s stomach clenches uncomfortably. “Because he’s the Devil?”

“No, not that. It’s because...well, you know he and I had a sexual relationship for a while.”

“Yes?” _Don’t jump to conclusions, Maze,_ she tells herself, but her brain won’t obey her. _Linda prefers men. Linda is in love with Lucifer. Why does Lucifer keep getting in the way of what and who I want?!_

“And then you wisely showed me that it was a mistake...”

“Wait, I showed you that?”

“Yes, you talked about the women he left at the side of the road.”

“But I only said that to be mean,” Maze protests.

“Perhaps, but I knew you were right anyway. That’s why I stopped the sex. And then...I missed it. A lot.”

“But...” Maze can’t help trying to jump in.

“Please let me finish,” says Linda. “I realized that right now I sometimes have a tender heart where sex is concerned. I sometimes get in over my head. I’m not that way about all sex — the bartender you introduced me to at Lux, Manbun, was just a lovely bit of fun. But I don’t know how my heart will react to sex with you. And I don’t want us to have lopsided feelings for each other.”

Maze just sits there, taking it all in. 

“Please say something,” asks Linda, with a scared expression on her face.

“I’m really envious of Manbun right now,” grouses Maze. 

Linda laughs. “Aww,” she says, and gives Maze another quick kiss, on the mouth this time. 

Maze restrains herself from pouncing on Linda. “I‘m OK with taking it slow,” she says, a little reluctantly. 

“I’m really glad to hear that. Thank you, Maze,” says Linda, and then gives her a longer kiss. 

Maze pretends she’s tied up. That reminds her to let Linda control the pace. 

That night, she dreams she is having sex with Linda...and then Ella shows up...and finally Chloe. Maze satisfies all of them. Repeatedly. 

And she wakes up feeling more needy and confused than ever.


	4. Chapter 4

Perry Smith’s trial is over — and he got off. Chloe refuses to tell Maze why. “Just read about it in the newspaper,” she says. “I have to go to work.” 

Maze reads with growing frustration. She doesn’t quite follow it all, but she knows Lucifer’s tangled up in it. He’s getting in her way _again._ The bounty hunting she did for Chloe, that she hoped would make Chloe notice her as more than a roommate and convenient babysitter, is now forgotten. 

Chloe arrives home from work late, and she’s in a bad mood. She raids the fridge more vigorously than she usually does. When Maze tries to engage her in snarky banter, their usual way of being together in the evening, Chloe just glares angrily, shakes her head, and stomps up to bed.

This time, Maze is not going to just let it lie. She goes after Chloe.

“What’s got your granny panties in a twist now, Decker?” 

It’s not even ten o’clock, but Chloe is wearing her pajamas already. “Do you have to be on my case about fashion right now, Maze?” she snaps, and then mutters something that sounds like “and for once I _wasn’t_ wearing granny panties.” She continues, out loud, “Your employer…” and then breaks off. “Never mind. Just…I want to be alone right now.”

Lucifer _again?_

She wants to smack herself for not having realized it before. Where Chloe is concerned, Lucifer and she are…rivals.

But that makes no sense. How can they be rivals if they both want the same thing? They both want Chloe to be happy, don’t they?

Maze has never wished for someone to be happy before. She has wished for people to get what they want, so they’d leave her alone, or give her what she wanted. But happiness? Too abstract. 

Except, now, where Chloe is concerned, it feels very real.

Maze thinks about Chloe when she’s happy. The way her face goes all soft. Her gentle smile. Her giggle. The way she moves differently, as if she’s filled with soda bubbles tickling her insides. 

She wants Chloe to be happy. And Lucifer keeps making her unhappy. Maze has to figure out what to do. 

Maybe if she helps Chloe with some of the little things she has to do every day. 

Maze goes grocery shopping for the household. But somehow that doesn’t seem like it’s enough.

Then she has it. Perry Smith is on the streets again. If she caught him once, she can catch him again. And she knows someone who would be glad to help with what she has in mind for him. She makes a phone call to Dan. 

~~~

Turns out, Maze messed up the grocery shopping. 

How was she to know Trixie wasn’t allowed to have Toasted Sugar Frosties? It has vitamins, doesn’t it? The kid is going to waste away if she can’t have either that or Pop Tarts. At least she seems to be able to lay her hands on chocolate cake whenever she wants it.

But Maze’s mood isn’t spoiled by the breakfast mishap. Because she’s also seen the newspaper. Her and Dan’s plan worked. Perry Smith is dead. 

“Pretty awesome that someone took him out, right?” she says. Surely making sure that Perry Smith got what he deserved will win her a few points with Chloe.

“Whoever did this is no better than he was,” Chloe says, just before she marches out to work.

Toasted Sugar Frosties taste pretty good with vodka, but they don’t drown the bitterness in Maze’s heart.


	5. Chapter 5

Chloe comes home smiling. And she won’t say why. 

Maze feels almost satisfied, though. Because Chloe is happy. She’s got that soda bubbles thing going on. Maze still feels a little odd in her tummy, though. Something’s still missing. She wishes she could share Chloe’s happiness more, maybe. She remembers her insight about Linda. “Friends celebrate together.” And sometimes kiss...

She can’t sleep, so she’s watching Netflix in her room and eating microwave popcorn, when she figures out what the tummy feeling is. 

It’s not enough for her after all for Chloe to be happy. She wants to kiss happy Chloe. And have happy Chloe kiss her back. 

Maze is chagrined. Maybe Chloe’s happiness isn’t what she really cares about after all. Maybe she’ll never get to that place of selflessness that humans value so much. Is that because she’s a demon? Because she has no soul?

She doesn’t get to brood for long. Suddenly she hears Chloe screaming. Before she can think twice, she’s in Chloe’s bedroom. Still holding the popcorn.

Chloe’s in bed, asleep, although there’s a sheen of sweat on her face. Apparently, she just had a bad dream. Maze shakes her shoulder. Chloe doesn’t wake, but the tension in her body relaxes.

Maze stands over her, and thinks about kissing happy Chloe. She’s tempted to. But Linda’s lessons about consent keep bouncing around her head. Instead, she sits in the chair by Chloe’s bed.

Chloe is soon sleeping peacefully again, but Maze can’t bring herself to leave. She’ll stay a few more minutes, she decides, to make sure the nightmare doesn’t come back... 

Chloe stirs, wakes up, and blearily looks at Maze. 

“Maze? I’m so glad to see you here. I’ve been waiting for you to come to my bedroom ever since you moved in.”

“What? Why didn’t you say something?”

“Oh, well, Trixie, you know.”

That doesn’t make sense to Maze, but she doesn’t care because Chloe is gazing at her with an expression she’s never seen on Chloe, although she’s seen it on plenty of other people.

Desire.

“Maze, come here. I need you. So much.”

Chloe pulls back the covers. She’s naked. She caresses and lifts her breasts, offering them to Maze.

The next thing Maze knows, she’s also naked, and pressed against Chloe, and kissing her. Chloe is responding to the kisses, making little purring noises, and writhing under her, desperate for her hands...

Then Maze wakes up from the dream.

She wasn’t kissing happy, turned-on Chloe after all. But she is still in Chloe’s bedroom, with a bag of popcorn in her lap, and Chloe is moaning. Also having some kind of sex dream, apparently. 

Maze knows she should leave, but she is riveted.

And so when Chloe wakes up and is angry with her voyeurism, Maze defensively turns it into a joke. 

“At least you’re getting laid in your dreams,” she tells Chloe. “Because it’s not happening in real life. Loosen up. Be impulsive!” 

Chloe does seem to have a bit of a spring in her step when she leaves for work that morning. 

~~~

The Goddess — Lucifer’s and Amenadiel’s mother — has the gall to _summon_ Maze to a bar across town. “God created Chloe,” she says to Maze. “And put her in Lucifer’s path.” 

Maze hates everything about this.

First, she hates God’s ex-wife. There isn’t an honest bone in her borrowed body. She is made entirely of plots and manipulations, all focused on Lucifer, which has been making him cranky for weeks.

Second, if it’s true, if God made Chloe to influence Lucifer, then surely Maze’s interest in Chloe is doomed. 

It’s not that she isn’t willing to share Chloe. She and Lucifer have shared almost everything and everyone for millennia. But who is she, a mere soulless demon, to turn Chloe away from a path prepared for her by the Alfuckingmighty? She doubts Lucifer’s Dear Old Dad would have included Maze in whatever he has in mind.

Third, if Lucifer believes the story, he’ll reject Chloe. It will hurt her. And Maze will have to choose between them. 

When Lucifer answers his own summons to the bar, it’s even worse than Maze feared.

“Chloe and I are real,” he says smugly.

So that’s why Chloe was soda-bubbles happy.

Maze tries to drag him out of the bar. Perhaps if she can delay his hearing about it for a while, he’ll become more settled in his relationship with Chloe, and it won’t tear him to pieces to learn of Chloe’s divine origins. 

Too late. He sees the photograph of Amenadiel and Chloe’s mum from thirty-five years ago. He knows instantly what it means. 

After he abruptly leaves the bar, Maze is walking along the darkened street alone, paying much less attention than usual to what’s going on around her. 

A weird thing is happening to her. 

Water is leaking from her eyes. And her body keeps doing this thing that’s like coughing or hiccups, but different. 

The water makes it hard to see, so she sits on a bench in front of a liquor store. She wipes at the water with her sleeve. And then she gets makeup in her eye, which makes matters worse. 

Someone sits down next to her.

Maze turns, preparing to fight. 

The person is holding out a piece of cloth.

“Are you all right, little one?” says the human woman next to her. “You can use my handkerchief to wipe your tears. You poor dear, you look like your heart is breaking.”

Tears. Of course, that’s what they are. But Maze has never shed tears before.

Her heart is breaking? That must be what this feeling is, this pain in her chest, this desire to fix things for Chloe, and for Lucifer, to put their relationship back on the right path to soda-bubbles. And squeezing her heart until it breaks, until water pops out of her eyes, is the certainty that she can’t. 

She can’t bring herself to go back home. She can’t bear the thought of being with Chloe if she’s unaware of what Lucifer is about to do to her. It will be even worse if she arrives home and he is already there, having it out with Chloe. And being with Chloe if Lucifer’s already confronted her and gone? The scariest thing of all. Being with this hurt, confused person, whose feelings affect her own so strongly? When her heart is being squeezed so painfully? She can’t even imagine it. How do humans _stand_ having all these feelings? 

She thinks about going to see Linda. But no. Linda is a shrink. She will want to put Maze’s busted heart into a dissecting-tray. Maze is afraid neither of them would survive that. 

Maybe a daiquiri or six will help this situation. Maze calls Ella. Ella’s phone replies with an automated message. _“I’m at church right now. Leave a message and I’ll catch you later.”_

Church. Worshiping the guy who is responsible for making Luficer’s and Chloe’s lives miserable right now.

Maze’s feelings for Ella turn sour.

What’s left to distract her? Drinking alone? Beating people up? Listening to music so loud that it drowns out any thoughts in your head?

Maze remembers an abandoned building where there’s often a rave. 

When in doubt, find a place where you can do all three.


	6. Chapter 6

Maze wakes confused.

She doesn’t know where she is, or why she’s naked, or who the four other naked people in the bed are, or why her skull feels like someone pounded a hundred nails into it. She is the chief torturer in Hell. _She’s_ supposed to be the one doing the nail pounding.

Then she realizes what has woken her.

“One eight-hundred Professor Feelgood. One eight...”

It’s the new ringtone on her cell phone, the one she begged Linda to make for her. It took five tries for them to get a recording that wasn’t interrupted by giggles.

The phone’s buried under a pile of assorted clothes next to the bed.

“What?” she snarls at it.

“Maze. Thank god you answered this time. It’s Linda. Listen, you’ve got to come immediately to the hospital.”

“What’s going on?”

“It’s Chloe. She’s been poisoned. Lucifer has this crazy plan to try to save her. I don’t know if I want you to help him do it or talk him out of it, but either way, I need you.”

When Maze arrives, Linda pulls her into a supply closet and hands her a set of scrubs. 

Under other circumstances, Maze would take full advantage of being hidden in a supply closet with Linda. 

Circumstances being what they are, she efficiently dons the scrubs while Linda fills her in on the plan — kill Lucifer, and then revive him once he’s gotten the antidote from its creator, who is in Hell.

Maze is so muddle-headed she is scarcely able to follow, but she makes out that her job is just to wield the electrical paddles. She’s got lots of experience with that. Hell has somewhat different equipment, but same basic idea — electricity does all sorts of interesting things to bodies. 

It almost doesn’t work — but then it does. Everybody she knows comes together to save Chloe. 

And although it’s scary, it’s also glorious. Finally Maze knows what “tribe” means. 

It means Ella and Dan break the law to get an ingredient the antidote needs. 

It means she and Linda sneak into the hospital to kill Lucifer’s body, send him to Hell, and then revive his body to bring him back. 

It means Trixie slips into her mom’s bed to keep her calm. (She doesn’t know all of what’s happening, but that doesn’t make her less a part of the tribe.) 

It means Amenadiel unleashes his warrior, and fights off hospital security to prevent Chloe being moved. 

Even the Goddess plays a part, going back to Hell to rescue Lucifer from the trap of his own guilt. Maze is particularly chuffed that she’s the one who gets to kill her body. The Goddess has had that coming for a long time.

When the excitement is over, the six of them — excepting Trixie, who’s staying with relatives, and Mum, who’s been coldly disinvited by Lucifer — repair to a bar. Exhausted, giddy, “I-can’t-believe-we-pulled-that-off” celebrations begin.

But Maze finds herself unable to fully participate in the rejoicing. Maze is contemplative. Because of that one moment.

That one interminable moment when she thought Lucifer was going to die for real, be lost to her forever. 

Maze has no soul. If Lucifer dies, he ends up back in Hell. But if Maze dies, she ends up nowhere. 

It wasn’t the prospect of her own ending that gave her that gut-wrenching pain. It was believing she’d live on but never see Lucifer again.

Then realizing that at some point down the line, she’ll lose everyone she knows the same way.

“You’ve been staring into your glass for twenty minutes, Maze. Are you all right?”

Maze glances up to see Linda hovering over her. Normally she would feel excited to have Linda so near. Now she feels nothing but that pain. Because she will lose Linda someday. All she sees is a future corpse.

“Let’s go outside,” says Linda.

There’s a bench outside the bar and they sit on it. 

“I saw the look on your face, back in the hospital, when you believed Lucifer was truly gone,” says Linda.

Maze sullenly looks at her own lap. She wishes Linda would go away. But Linda persists. 

“Maze, have you ever lost someone you cared about?”

Maze is silent for a long time before answering. “Lucifer and I have had a rocky relationship. But I always knew he would…be there. I don’t mean be there for me. I mean, exist where I exist.”

“And you haven’t cared for anyone else, have you?”

Maze can’t answer that. Because she does care for someone else now. Several someone elses. One of whom is sitting next to her, and she suddenly wants to kiss her. And she also wants to hit her, because her questions are hurting Maze so much. 

Although in the end, it’s not Linda who’s hurting Maze. It’s Maze’s pathetically fragile heart again. Broken in yet another way now. Linda is only trying to examine the damage. 

“I had a divine feather,” she tells Linda. “I kept it because I thought it might help me get back to Hell someday. A while back, Amenadiel was stabbed. Using my knife. I used the feather to heal him.”

“You cared for Amenadiel enough to sacrifice your own way back home.”

“But I _didn’t_ care for him. I was furious at him for using me. But I felt responsible, because it was my knife. And besides, I didn’t want the guy who attacked him to kill him. I wanted to kill him myself.”

Linda laughs. “Sometimes that’s what caring looks like, Maze.” 

The dam holding back Maze’s words breaks at last.

“Linda, when I thought Lucifer was going to end up in Hell for good, and I would never see him again...it was like I couldn’t breathe. And then I realized that if Lucifer stayed dead, Chloe would also die. And then I realized…eventually I will lose everyone I know that way. I don’t know if this body is immortal or not, but it doesn’t matter. Everyone will leave this world to go elsewhere, Hell or the Silver City. And I won’t. If this body ends, everything I am will end. It’s too much to think about!”

“Humans have a word for those thoughts and feelings. We call it grieving.”

“I hate these human feelings, Linda. I can’t handle them. I’m too weak. I almost want to end myself right now, just to get it over with.”

“That’s part of grieving sometimes,” Linda tells her, “And I dearly hope you don’t end yourself, Maze,” she continues. “I would miss you so much.”

Linda kisses her mouth. It’s not a sexy kiss. It’s a kiss that feels like…drinking down a shot of whiskey when you’re angry and exhausted and just really, really need one. 

It’s a kiss that reignites a spark in Maze’s heart. 

“You…would miss me?” she whispers, her face against Linda’s cheek. 

“Of course, Maze. We’re part of the same tribe. You’re my friend. I care about you. I…” Linda stops abruptly, and kisses Maze again. This time it’s a little more sexy.

Maze kisses back. On the one hand, adding arousal to the emotional mess inside her feels like too much. On the other, she is deeply hungry to lose herself in someone’s body, and Linda’s kissing her… 

_“There_ they are!” comes Lucifer’s voice from the doorway of the bar. He sounds hearty and half-drunk. Which means he’s covering up discomfort. “Stop with this private snogging. Come inside and let us watch!”

 _“Lucifer!”_ snaps Linda. Maze has never heard that much anger in Linda’s voice before.

But anger? That feeling she knows and is familiar with. She gets in Lucifer’s face.

“Thanks for interrupting the one pleasant moment I’ve had today!” Maze snarls at him.

Lucifer is familiar with anger too. _“You’ve_ had an unpleasant day? _I’m_ the one who’s been to Hell and back!” 

Amenadiel and Dan and Ella are trying to drag Lucifer back inside. 

“Key words being ‘and back,’” snaps Maze. “Linda and I are the ones responsible for that.”

“If only that were true,” growls Lucifer. “It was _Mum_ who brought me back. Now I owe my life to her _twice._ Even once is too much!”

“Well, pardon the people who helped you save Chloe for needing a few minutes to deal with thinking you might die for good,” Maze counters.

Lucifer looks puzzled and intrigued for a moment, but then he just comes out with that irritating scoffing laugh. “Fine,” he snarls, and allows himself to be herded back inside. 

Ella remains outside. “Are you two okay?” 

“I’m not okay yet,” says Linda. “But I think I will be.”

Ella goes in to give Linda a hug. Then she’s wrapping her arms around Maze. She smells like daiquiris and machine oil. 

“Maze? Girlfriend? Are you all right? I _really_ had the easy part in all this, didn’t I? I don’t know why everyone is talking about going to Hell and back, but whatever it was that you guys had to do to help Chloe, it sounds awful. All I had to do was break into my brother’s auto repair garage. Okay, that also meant confronting a lifetime’s worth of baggage between us, but…”

The last twist of the last rope Maze is dangling from is about to fray. She instinctively grabs for another lifeline. 

“Ella, Linda, if there’s anything wrong with me that a hot threeway makeout won’t cure, I don’t want to think about it,” she says. And smiles salaciously. 

And then she realizes she’s not talking to the party girls who hang out at Lux, and puts her head in her hands. 

When she raises her head to face her doom, she sees that Ella and Linda are gazing speculatively at each other.

Then they smile. “That sounds like a _great_ idea,” Ella says. 

“Let’s ditch this joint,” Linda says. “The boys can fend for themselves.”

“Maybe they’ll decide to do the same thing,” Ella says.


	7. Chapter 7

They end up at Linda’s office. Linda breaks out her secret stash of booze, and opens the door to her secret bedroom. The furniture consists of one queen-sized bed, and a nightstand with a drawer so full of sex toys it can’t be closed. 

“Rules of engagement?” says Linda as they all pile onto the bed.

Maze and Ella exchange glances and start laughing.

 _“What?”_ demands Linda. 

“I love you, Linda,” Ella declares. “You’re so...”

“...control freaky,” finishes Maze.

Linda looks for a moment like she’s outraged, and then throws up her hands. 

“Fine!” she says. She grabs Maze and kisses her. Hard. There’s none of the caution and holding back of their previous engagements. Linda knows what she wants, and she takes it.

She kisses deeply, teasing with her tongue, until Maze is aching to feel that tongue between her legs.

It’s everything Maze imagined it would be, and more.

Linda moans when Maze teases in return.

“Hey. Don’t leave me out,” says Ella after a while, pulling Linda off of Maze, and taking her place. 

Ella throws her arms around Maze and kisses her mouth, all over her face, nips at her neck and earlobe. Maze runs her hands down Ella’s back to her hips and squeezes her ass. Ella is delightfully wriggly. Maze would like to see how she moves with a couple of fingers inside her. 

“Oh my God. Whyyy did I wait so long to kiss you, Maze?” says Ella. “I’ve wanted to ever since our first girls’ night out.” 

Linda interrupts to kiss Ella. 

Watching Linda and Ella kiss and lick at each other makes Maze so hot she decides to take her top off. When she reveals her breasts, Linda and Ella pounce on her. Maze allows them to hold her down. They play with her tits, frequently interrupting their torments to kiss each other some more. 

Maze eventually decides it’s Linda’s turn to be teased. She effortlessly flips Linda onto her back and crouches over her, holding both hands over her head. 

Linda shrieks. “Maze, you’re so strong!”

Maze remembers not to mention that it’s because she’s a demon. She also remembers to ask, “Can I take off your top and bra?” 

“Let me,” says Ella eagerly. “You hold her still.”

“I like how you get in there and ask what you want, Ella,” says Linda as Ella undoes buttons. 

“Survival skill. I grew up with lots of brothers,” says Ella. She reaches around to unhook the bra strap, and steals a quick kiss. 

She takes one of Linda’s bountiful breasts in her mouth with a sigh of delight. Maze teases Linda’s other nipple with her fingers. Linda moans loudly. 

“Wow, were you this loud when you were fucking Lucifer in here?” Maze says. 

Ella’s mouth comes off Linda’s breast. “What? Linda, you’re fucking Lucifer?”

The noises Linda makes now are strange combinations of laughs, moans, and outrage. 

“Maze! Did you _have_ to bring that up in front of Ella?”

“What? Is this _another_ social rule I didn’t know about?”

“Right. Don’t mention who’s fucking whom without permission.” 

“It’s all too much for me. I’m still working on asking permission before trying to fuck someone, never mind asking permission before _mentioning_ fucking someone.”

“You’re really fucking Lucifer?” Ella repeats, still astounded.

“I was fucking Lucifer. I’m not any more.”

“In your office?”

“Yes, look, it’s a long story. We can talk about it later.”

“But—“ Ella begins. Maze silences her with her mouth. And then persists with _her_ original question. 

“I have to know, Linda. Were you in here during the day, fucking Lucifer, and moaning so loudly you could be heard down the block?”

“Not exactly, Maze.”

“Not exactly which parts?”

“He covered my mouth with his hand,” Linda says.

Maze groans. “Oh shit, that’s hot.”

Linda giggles and then says pointedly, “I think Ella is wearing too many clothes.”

“Oh all right,” says Maze. “We’ll change the subject. The subject is now...Ella.”

Ella shrieks with glee as Maze and Linda tackle her and bare her breasts. They drive her into a frenzy with their mouths and fingers. 

Eventually they exhaust their giddy energy and they’re lying in a pile together, here and there lazily stroking a breast or running fingers through hair or kissing. 

“I wish Chloe were here,” says Ella.

Linda agrees. 

Maze wants to say something too, but she gets that painful squeezing feeling in her chest again, and can’t speak.


	8. Chapter 8

Maze is pacing the cheap motel room. Like she has been for most of the week she’s been holed up in it.

She went there because it hurts too much to even think about anyone she knows, never mind seeing them. She hoped being alone would help fix her damaged heart. It hasn’t. Her heart still feels broken, and now she is also lonely and stir-crazy. 

“One eight hundred Professor Feelgood. One —“

Maze decides to pick up her phone this time. “Ella?” she says cautiously. 

“Maze! Are you OK? I was worried, because Chloe said she hasn’t seen you for days.”

“I’m...fine. Chloe’s back at work?”

“Yes, today is her first day back. Oh, she also thought you might have news of Lucifer.”

“Err...no?”

“You don’t know where he’s gone?” 

“Gone?”

“What rock have you been sleeping under, girl? Chloe went to see Lucifer, and Manbun said he’s been gone for a week! Dustcovers on the furniture!”

Maze’s mind rapidly ticks through possibilities. Chloe went to see Lucifer. So either nothing happened between them, or Chloe believes whatever happened is repairable. Lucifer’s gone. Only one thing would drive him away right after Chloe almost died: Believing that she was put in his path by his Dear Old Dad. 

Maze is pretty sure Lucifer will be back. He does these things from time to time. On the other hand, he’s never been in a situation quite like this one before. 

One thing is clear. She can’t let herself hide from Chloe any longer. 

“Where were you, Maze?” demands Chloe as soon as Maze arrives at their shared abode. Although she’s on her feet, she looks pale and pinched. 

“Here and there,” says Maze, elusively. This time the painful squeezy heart feeling is struggling with a desire to throw her arms around Chloe and kiss her silly. There’s some fear in the mix too. 

Chloe rolls her eyes. She sits at the counter and wraps her hands around a cup of tea. Stares into it angrily. 

“You disappeared right when I could really have used your help, Maze. I needed a lot of care after I got home from the hospital. Fortunately, Dan and Ella and Linda and Amenadiel took care of me. I’m glad I have some friends I can count on. Unlike you and Lucifer, I guess.”

Now the squeezy heart feeling has the field. And the lumpy feeling in her chest. And the stinging feeling in her eyes. 

She wants to run from the room. Out the door. And keep running until...

But she stays.

“Well?” snaps Chloe. “Are you going to say something?” She looks up at Maze.

Now there’s shock on her face. 

“Maze? What’s wrong?” 

“What’s wrong?” Maze repeats. “What’s wrong? You almost died. Lucifer almost died trying to save you. And there was nothing I could do. Nothing!” she screams.

The water leaks out of her eyes. And now mucus is leaking out of her nose too. Fuck, human bodies are disgusting. Fuck, human feelings. She thought she’d invented some pretty clever torments in Hell. She’d had no clue. No fucking clue at all. 

There are arms around her. A trembling body pressed against hers. A face close to hers. “Maze!” Chloe cries. She presses Maze’s wet, snotty face against her chest. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I didn’t think...I’ve only been thinking about myself.”

It makes Maze feel even worse, that this woman she cares for, that she neglected out of fear and confusion, is apologizing to _her._ She wants to tear herself away. Yell. Destroy something.

But Chloe’s arms are around her, and she stays. Until her body stops leaking and twitching. 

Chloe’s still holding her. Stroking her hair and shoulders. 

“Sshhh. It’s OK. It’s OK, Maze. It’s OK, sweetie,” she’s saying. 

Maze moves her head a little. Now her mouth is millimeters from Chloe’s neck. The warm pulse point. She touches it with her lips.

“I just feel so lost,” says Chloe. “I know people care for me. But somehow that only makes me feel more lonely.”

“Mm-hm,” Maze hums. She moves her lips a little higher. Presses a little more firmly. 

“What’s wrong with me?” cries Chloe. “And Lucifer, he — Maze, were you with him?”

“No,” says Maze, feeling apprehensive about where the conversation is going now. But her lips can’t help inching a little higher. 

“Do you know where he is? Mmm—” Chloe sighs as Maze’s kisses just under her chin. 

And then Chloe tenses. 

On the few “friends-who-kiss” dates she’s had with Linda, Maze has been developing more sensitivity to human body language. She can tell when Linda wants to continue kissing and when she wants to take a break or stop. It’s harder to understand the signals Linda gives when she is ambivalent — when she wants to continue but worries it might be too late, or too tempting, or... But Maze is getting there. And she recognizes that signal in Chloe now.

Reluctantly she pulls away. 

“I don’t know where Lucifer is,” she tells Chloe. “I don’t know why he left,” she half-lies.

“We had a weird argument before I went to the hospital,” Chloe said. He kept asking me ‘did I know’ and ‘was I in on it.’ I thought he meant the poisoning. But…was it something I did? Something I said? That made him leave?”

“I don’t know,” says Maze. Which is close enough to the truth, if not right on the nose.

“It was so weird being at work without him. And going to Lux to tell him I’m back, and...”

“Dust covers,” says Maze. 

“And we were just...it seemed that we were...”

Maze’s heart is no longer feeling squeezed. It’s heavy, sinking like a stone through her body. Chloe’s distress over a missing Lucifer clearly outweighs any pleasure she might feel over a present Maze. The only way Maze knows how to make someone feel better is something Chloe doesn’t want from her right now. 

Maze is no good at listening to other people’s feelings. Chloe’s on to her trick of playing music in her earbuds and pretending to listen. So she doesn’t use the earbuds. But, as Chloe goes on fretting about Lucifer, she’s not listening any more. Not really.


	9. Chapter 9

“You have something on your mind tonight, Maze,” says Linda, breaking their kiss.

“Hm? No, Linda. Come back here.” Maze kisses her again. She slips her hand into Linda’s dress, and wraps it around her breast, squeezing it through the bra. “I really want to kiss it, Linda,” she whispers. 

“Not until you admit there’s something bothering you. I won’t make you talk about it, Maze, but please admit it.”

“Fine. There’s something bothering me.” Maze licks Linda’s neck.

Linda moans, but then she’s back to worrying on the bone. “I promised I wouldn’t make you talk about it, but maybe you’d feel better if you did.”

Maze is really not happy about this. But she feels like she has no choice. She sits up.

Linda sits up and reties her dress. Her hair is still mussed and her lips are cherry red from Maze’s little bites. 

“I don’t know how,” Maze says. “You know I’m bad at social rules.”

“You’re not bad at them, Maze. You are just learning them later than most humans do.” 

“Fine. Well, I learned early on that during fucking someone, you aren’t supposed to talk about other people you’re fucking.”

She sneaks a look at Linda out of the corner of her eye and sees that Linda just sat up straighter.

“But I don’t know whether the same thing applies to people you’re kissing. Or people you aren’t fucking but you want to fuck. So, since we’re kissing, how do talk to you about someone I’m not fucking but I want to fuck?”

For just a couple of seconds, it’s like Linda is frozen, staring into empty air. Maze even looks around to see if Amenadiel is there, doing his slowing-down-time thing.

Linda moves again. She turns to look at Maze. “You can talk about that with me. We can just take a little break from the kissing, OK?” There’s a little crease between her eyebrows that Maze hasn’t seen there before.

“It’s Chloe,” says Maze. “I want to fuck her. That’s nothing unusual, of course. But Linda, I also want to cuddle with her. And then make breakfast together. But she doesn’t want to. I mean, we already do the breakfast part, since we’re housemates, but that by itself isn’t enough. Linda, when I’m with her, I feel like there’s a huge hole in me. I don’t know what to do. How do I get rid of these feelings?”

Linda pauses again. “Wow, Maze,” she says after she unfreezes. “I had no idea you had that much of a crush on Chloe. It was pretty obvious at girls’ night that you wanted her, but I didn’t know it went beyond your usual sexual desire.”

“Crush? Is that what you call it?” It makes sense to Maze. _Crushed_ is what her heart feels like so often these days. “What do I do, Linda? I know you can’t tell me as a therapist. But can you as a friend?”

“What did she say when you told her, Maze?”

“Wait. _Told_ her?”

“Yes, Maze. Like you told me you wanted to be friends with benefits.”

“Oh well. I’ve suggested that we fuck any number of times, and she says no, it’s not gonna happen.”

Linda laughs. “I can just see it,” she says. Then she puts her hand on Maze’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. So what happened when you told her about your feelings?”

“You mean the cuddling and having breakfast parts? I haven’t told her. How am I supposed to tell her that if she won’t fuck me?”

Linda’s face gets really weird looking, like she’s having a whole bunch of feelings at once. She opens her mouth and closes it several times.

“I can’t tell you how to bring it up or how to say it, Maze, but I assure you that you can. Without any fucking first. People do it all the time.”

“Well, _they_ got more practice with the social rules,” grouses Maze. “Have I confessed enough? Can we go back to kissing now?”

“If that’s all you want to say about it, Maze. But I’m curious. How long have you felt like this?”

“Since girls’ night out,” Maze says. “Since I first moved in with her.”

“Wow.”

“Are you OK, Linda? Did I break the social rules after all?”

“No, you did fine, Maze.”

“Then why is your face all crinkly?” 

“I have a confession to make too. I know you have sex with a lot of people, but it never occurred to me that there was someone other than me you wanted to…cuddle with. And I’m having unexpected feeings about it.”

“Tender-hearted feelings?”

“Well, yes, Maze. How did you know?”

“You told me, ‘I sometimes have a tender heart where sex is concerned.’” 

“That’s right, I did.”

“Are you gonna dump me now?”

“Of course not, Maze! We’re friends.”

“Friends don’t break up over tender-hearted feelings?”

“Some friends do, but I don’t.”

“Are you gonna want to stop kissing?” Maze pursues.

“I don’t know, Maze. But I don’t want to stop kissing tonight. In fact…” Linda kisses her...


	10. Chapter 10

...Maze kisses Linda back, hard, and then remembers. She needs to allow Linda to set the pace. She pretends to be tied up. 

She’s briefly surprised when Linda slides her hands under her leather tank. She moans as Linda’s fingers rub at her nipples. They haven’t done anything like this, except during the three-way makeout with Ella. 

“Please take it off, Maze,” whispers Linda. “I’ve been dreaming about licking them again ever since the other night.” 

Maze pulls her top off. She closes her eyes, and the next thing she knows is Linda’s warm, wet mouth around her nipple. 

Maze goes rigid with the pleasure of it, and the effort to hold back. _Let Linda set the pace..._ Linda moves her attention to Maze’s other nipple. 

Maze slowly moves her hand so it’s resting against the side of Linda’s breast, over her dress. She squeezes gently. 

_This is me telling you I want to touch you,_ Maze does not say out loud.

“You said something about wanting to kiss it, Maze,” Linda whispers. 

“Linda, yes...” 

“All right. After I’m finished here,” Linda promises, and then pushes Maze onto her back on the couch, kneels between her legs, and continues the sweet assault on her nipples. 

Even though Linda hasn’t touched her there, Maze is so hard between her legs it’s as if the throbbing is a bass drum she can hear. She writhes her hips in need. Linda wedges her knee there. 

Maze bucks against Linda’s knee. Linda’s gently biting and pulling at her nipples now. 

“Oh, Linda, harder,” Maze whispers, afraid to push. 

“Harder, Maze?” She bites down on one nipple, pulls the other. Twists.

“Coming...” Maze grits out, and then it takes her. “Fuck, Linda...f-f-f-uuck...” 

It’s so, so, sweet, the rush through her body, as Linda continues rocking her knee against Maze’s pussy, sucking hard on her deliciously sore nipples, then bringing her back down with gentler kisses. 

Maze releases herself from her pretend bondage. She yanks Linda’s mouth up to hers, and kisses her hard and deep. Linda gasps and shudders all over. 

Maze wants to tear Linda’s clothes off right there, but she remembers to ask.

“Ooh, Linda. Is it my turn now?” She slides a finger along the overlap of Linda’s dress. “Can I unwrap you?”

“Yes, Maze.” It sounds like there’s a lump in her throat. “Yes, _please.”_

“Can we go to the bedroom?” Maze suggests. She pours seduction into her voice and says quietly, “I want you to have the room to _spread out.”_

Unwrapping Linda is even better than Maze’s fantasy about it. 

Linda, her hair loose and mussed from Maze’s hands in it. Maze has tangled Linda’s arms in the dress fabric, trapping them behind her, and is taking her time exploring. 

She has to release Linda’s hands to continue the unwrapping. Linda grabs her head. “Kiss me,” she demands, and now Maze is on top of her, and Linda is moaning into her mouth. 

All the kissing they’ve done didn’t prepare her for the intensity of Linda’s desire. _Apparently I wasn’t the only one holding back,_ Maze thinks, as she climbs off Linda and continues to take her out of the dress.

She slides her hand between Linda’s legs and encounters warm flesh. And no underwear. 

“You were planning to seduce me tonight!” Maze accuses playfully. 

“You’ll probably be annoyed to hear this,” says Linda, “but I wasn’t wearing any on our other dates either. I just kept chickening out on taking things far enough for you to notice.”

The implications are too much for Maze to process right now. “Time for the rest of this dress to come off,” she says. She lifts Linda off the bed with one arm while she finishes unwrapping the dress and pulling Linda free of it. 

“Maze! How did you do that?”

“I’m stronger than I look,” Maze tells her. “One of the perks of being a demon.” She worries Linda will be uncomfortable hearing that.

Linda surprises her again.

“Ooh my mighty demon warrior,” she says. “I want you to fuck me.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” mumbles Maze, kissing her way down Linda’s body and settling between her spread thighs.

Maze keeps score. She makes Linda come three times, and Linda makes her come four more times. 

After all that, they cuddle. And laugh. And don’t talk about feelings. 

But Maze goes home to make breakfast, because she promised Chloe she would. 

Maze really likes this friends with benefits thing. She feels so much better. Like Linda helped her body made more room for her heart.


	11. Chapter 11

Maze is still working out how she’s going to talk to Chloe about cuddling and breakfast. In the meantime, she pampers the Hell out of Chloe for the next few days. She even gives Chloe foot rubs. 

Chloe continues to fret over Lucifer. Maze notices her feelings shifting from distress and worry to frustration and anger. 

“He never thinks of anyone but himself. He’s probably off with some bimbo,” complains Chloe.

Maze knows it’s more complicated than that. Lucifer never uses the dust covers when he’s off with some bimbo. And he knows about Chloe being made by his Dad. That’s probably what’s behind his disappearance. 

But she’s not gonna be the one to tell Chloe about that. _That_ conversation would need to be managed by an expert on human emotions. Not an emotionally stunted demon like Maze.

Chloe’s in bed with well-rubbed feet and without Maze, and Maze feels restless. 

It’s not Ella’s church night. Ella’s so wriggly. Maze is in the mood for a daiquiri.

~~~

“Where’s Linda tonight?” Ella asks, starting on her second daiquiri. 

“I don’t know,” says Maze, starting on her third.

“Oh, but I thought the two of you were dating.”

“Not really. We’re more like friends who kiss. Mostly.” 

Maze is also learning the concept of TMI. She doesn’t _have_ to clarify to Ella that they’re friends who have kissed a bunch of times and fucked and cuddled once and she really wants to do the fucking thing again, followed by breakfast.

“Aww, that’s so sweet!” says Ella. 

“Are you dating anyone?” asks Maze. It’s one of those things you’re supposed to say. 

“I’m in between boys at the moment,” Ella sighs.

“Are you only attracted to men?” Maze asks, surprised, remembering Ella’s enthusiastic participation in the threeway makeout session not so long ago. 

“I like playing with girls, but I’ve never had dating-type feelings about a girl,” Ella says.

“Dating-type feelings?”

“You know. When you notice someone and you can’t stop thinking about making out with them, and then you go out on some dates, and then you can’t stop thinking about fucking them, and then you fuck a bunch of times, and then you start wanting to give them the key to your apartment.”

“And you want to wake up and have breakfast with them.”

“Exactly!” says Ella brightly.

There are so many ways to describe these feelings, Maze realizes. Humans must think about them an awful lot.

Ella’s looking at Maze with those big eyes.

“Can I kiss you?” Maze finds herself saying.

Ella tilts her face up for a kiss. She moans and wriggles as Maze takes her mouth hard. 

“Oh, Maze, you’re such a good kisser.”

Maze starts to say “Lots of practice,” but then she isn’t sure if that’s the sort of thing to say to someone you’re kissing.

“But you must have lots of practice,” Ella says after they break the kiss. “You’re sooo hot. You must be able to attract anyone you want. I wish I could do that!” 

“I can’t attract everyone I want,” Maze says.

“Really? Is there someone you’re pining for? Tell me!”

Is this the sort of thing you say to people who you’ve been kissing? To talk about other people you’re…not kissing or even doing anything except giving them footrubs and pretending to listen to their feelings about Lucifer?

“You have to _promise_ not to tell,” she says.

“Of course!” Ella makes a zipping motion across her lips.

“I have a crush on Chloe,” says Maze. “But she’s not interested in me.”

 _“On Chloe!_ Oh Maze, that’s so sad!” She puts the back of her hand on her forehead. _“For it is written in the stars…that it shall never be…”_ she intones dramatically.

“What? What are you talking about?” Maze doesn’t _think_ Ella knows about God having made Chloe.

“She’s completely gone on Lucifer. There will never be anyone else for her.”

“Gone on him? She’s rejected him any number of times!”

“Maybe they haven’t figured it all out yet,” says Ella firmly, “but you mark my words. They are destined. They would go to Hell and back for each other.”

Maze snorts daiquiri out her nose, and covers up her amusement by pretending to cough.

She realizes Ella is right. 

Chloe might get mad at Lucifer a lot; Chloe might insist that Hell will freeze over before she has sex with him, but in the end she’s just as obsessed with him as he is with her. And that’s not going to change. If Maze ever does get her into bed-and-cuddling-and-breakfast, Lucifer will somehow be there with them. If not in body, then in Chloe’s head. 

It’s not that Maze would mind sharing Chloe’s affection, or her body, with Lucifer. She just doesn’t want _every_ encounter between her and Chloe to end up being a threesome.

What’s that movie rule that people talk about sometimes? The Bechdel Test.

Maze wants her and Chloe’s relationship to pass the Bechdel Test. And so far it’s not looking good. 

Ugh, she is so sick of thinking about it. She leans in toward Ella.

“Speaking of attracting people I want,” she says into Ella’s ear. _“I want you.”_

“You want to play with me? Even though I only date boys?”

“Yes,” Maze says. “I don’t want the key to your apartment.” She licks Ella’s lips. “I just want to go home with you and make you come, over and over again.”

“Ooh Maze! That’s hot!” Ella wiggles all over. “My apartment’s just a few blocks away,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind cats.”

As long as Maze is gonna get some pussy, she’s just fine with cats. 

~~~

Maze is happy. Maybe not soda-bubbles happy, but she’s feeling fine. She’s on familiar ground, where she’s competent. More than competent. She gazes at Ella lustfully. 

Ella’s nipples are very red and erect from Maze’s attentions. Her face is flushed and her eyes are bright with daiquiris and excitement. 

“I want to taste more of you, Ella,” Maze whispers, her fingers teasing just under the waistband of Ella’s jeans.

“Ooh Maze. You want us to take our pants off?” 

“I can’t fit my head in there if you keep your pants on,” Maze points out practically.

“Yes, then! But you should probably know, I’ve never done pants-off stuff with a girl before.” She giggles. “You’ll be my first!”

“Is that OK?” Maze remembers to say. She shoos a curious cat off the bed. “Can I be your first, Ella? The first girl to put her fingers inside you? The first girl to lick you?”

“Ooh, yes.” Ella wriggles. “Then after you go down on me, I want you to teach me how to make you feel good.” She flutters her eyelashes. “But just remember…it’s my first time…so be gentle with me.” She giggles hysterically.

Maze is gentle. Until Ella begs her not to be. 

After they fuck, Maze cuddles with Ella a little. It’s sweet. Maze thinks she wouldn’t mind having breakfast with Ella. But she doesn’t long for it. Not the way she does with Chloe. Not the way she’s…looking forward to it? with Linda.

“Next time, let’s do it with Linda,” Ella says as Maze is taking her leave.

“I’ll suggest it to her,” says Maze, but she thinks, _I’m keeping Linda to myself for a while first._ Then she wonders why she thought that. Friends don’t keep friends to themselves, she’s pretty sure.


	12. Chapter 12

Maze shouldn’t have waited so long to have this conversation. 

“Chloe, we need to have a talk,” she says, pouring wine for both of them.

“Talk?” says Chloe. She’s even more flustered than usual. She grabs the wine glass and drinks it all down without paying attention. “Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?” 

Maze refills the glass. “I know, it’s not my usual way of doing things,” she says. “But I need to.”

“It’s not a good time, Maze.”

“I know.”

Chloe acts like she hasn’t heard. “Lucifer’s back and I’m just so angry with him, I can’t think straight about anything.”

Lucifer’s back. With a woman he’s claiming is his wife.

“Now that Lucifer’s back, there’s never going to be a good time,” Maze says. 

“All right, then, out with it,” snaps Chloe.

“Chloe, um, Linda helped me figure out how to say this. I have…feelings for you.”

“Feelings?”

“Um, dating-type feelings.”

“Dating-type… _Maze, what the fuck are you on about?_ Oh fuck, now look what you’ve made me do. Now I have to put fucking money into the fucking swear jar.” 

Chloe grabs her wallet and throws a twenty into the swear jar. “There. That should pay for all the fucking swear words I’m going to use tonight.”

Maze is amused at the idea of pre-paying the swear jar. She can’t wait to tell that one to…

Ugh.

“You were saying?” Chloe continues.

“I have a crush on you, Chloe.”

“A crush? As in, you want to sleep with—no, I paid for it—you want to fuck me? This is not exactly news, Maze. You’ve been pestering me about it ever since you moved in. The answer is no, I don’t want to fuck you, and even if I did want to fuck you, I would not fuck you, because I don’t do emotionless fucks. And that’s not going to change.”

“No, I don’t want to fuck you, Chloe. I mean, yes I do, but I don’t want to emotionlessly fuck you. Chloe, I have feelings for you. Tender-hearted feelings. Oh damn it all to the deepest dungeon of Hell, how do I _say_ it?”

“Maze, are you saying you’re in love with me?”

“I don’t know what that meeeeans! I want to fuck you. I want to cuddle with you. I want to make breakfast with you.”

“But we already make breakfast together. And you give me foot rubs…”

“But isn’t there something about doing all three with the same person that adds up to more than the sum of its parts?” says Maze, desperate to be understood. “I mean, when you kissed Lucifer, didn’t you—oh _shit.”_

Maze hopes Chloe’s twenty covers her swears too.

Chloe’s eyes fill with tears. “How could he, Maze? After we kissed…after I almost died…”

Maze abandons her attempt to Have a Talk with Chloe, and puts her arms around her. She presses her lips to Chloe’s temple. She tries to think about how Linda does this thing…this… _comforting._ She remembers the one time Chloe did this for her.

“Sshhh. It’s OK. It’s OK, Chloe. It’s OK, sweetie,” she says, echoing Chloe’s words to her from a week ago. They sound foreign in her mouth. But Maze learned when she was knee-high to a fire-sprite that the first step in learning how to do something was just to try to do it.

Chloe doesn’t say anything. She just clings to Maze, and sobs, and sobs, and makes a snotty mess on Maze’s leather shirt. 

Gradually her sobs and tears come to an end. 

“Maze, I can’t face going to bed alone tonight. Would you sleep in my bed with me? Would you hold me?”

“Of course I will, sweet Chloe.” More foreign words. More confused feelings. Did Chloe hear her talk about her feelings after all? Is this her way of saying yes, she wants the same thing? Or is this clinging to the warm body next to her because she’s lonely and it’s handy? Maze remembers the human woman handing her a handkerchief when she was crying. Is Maze the handerchief now? Or is it all of those things? Or something else?

It doesn’t matter. Maze is going to sleep in Chloe’s bed with her, and hold her, for however long she wants it. And when she doesn’t want it any more, Maze will leave. And then she’ll figure out what it all means.

She’s starting to learn: Sometimes you can just let things happen, even if you don’t know how they’ll turn out. 

That wasn’t what it was like in Hell. You pretty much always knew how it would turn out. The tormented would loop again through the parts of their lives they felt guilty about. Maze would lead an army of lesser demons to battle and victory. Lucifer would sit on his throne. Together, they’d keep the rebellious demons in line.

Not any more. 

Chloe wears pajamas to bed. Maze has nothing suitable to wear in bed, except for a T-shirt of Amenadiel’s that she somehow wound up with. It comes down to her knees. 

Maze sleeps hardly at all that night. She lies against Chloe’s back, her arm over her, hand resting on her stomach. Sometimes she just stares into the dark. Sometimes she counts Chloe’s breaths. Sometimes she strokes her hair, very lightly, so as not to waken her. When Chloe trembles in the midst of one of her bad dreams, Maze pulls her more firmly against herself until her breathing calms again. 

Chloe tosses. She turns around. Still asleep, she wraps her arms around Maze’s neck and buries her head between Maze’s breasts. She throws one leg over Maze’s thigh. She makes a little purring sound, that turns into a snore. 

Maze’s nose is in Chloe’s hair and she smells so sweet. There’s a singular note in the scents of all three of the women Maze has shared a bed with this week. Maze decides to call the note “human,” because she doesn’t remember smelling it on Lucifer. Or Amenadiel. But maybe it’s “woman.” Further investigation might be warranted.

With the scent of Chloe’s hair in her nostrils, she becomes aware of Chloe’s warm breath against her breasts, and then of Chloe’s pussy, under the pajamas, just barely touching Maze’s thigh. 

Pretty soon Maze is so aroused she’s aching. She’s desperate to touch herself. But she can’t move without waking Chloe. She’s pretty sure Chloe will be embarrassed if she wakes to find Maze wanking off. 

She clenches and throbs and lies still. 

Maze wakes from a light doze. It’s getting close to dawn, faint light in the sky. She realizes why she’s awakened. Chloe is nuzzling her neck. 

“Chloe?” Maze whispers.

Chloe doesn’t respond, but keeps nuzzling, and then kissing. 

“Chloe?” Maze is way too aroused to stay still if this continues. She needs Chloe to either wake up or lie still again.

“Maze,” Chloe says. Maze can tell she’s still mostly asleep.

“Wake up, Chloe. I’m getting…uncomfortable.”

“Don’ wanna wake up. Kiss me, Maze,” mumbles Chloe. “Please.”

Maze knows she shouldn’t. 

Maze kisses Chloe gently on the cheek.

Chloe turns her head until her mouth meets Maze’s.

Maze accepts her fate. She only has so much willpower. She’s gonna kiss half-asleep Chloe and live with the consequences. And, if she’s gonna do it, she’s gonna do it right.

She hopes Linda will forgive her. 

Maze kisses Chloe back. The kiss turns deep and passionate. Pleasure surges through her body. She moans. 

Chloe moans. She shoves Maze’s t-shirt out of the way and straddles Maze’s bare thigh. Maze feels Chloe’s wetness through the fabric of her pajama pants. Chloe’s knee pushes between Maze’s legs, pressing against her bare mound and aching clit. Chloe again finds Maze’s mouth with hers, kisses her deeply. 

Chloe starts rocking against Maze’s thigh. Each roll of her hips pushes her knee against Maze’s clit.

Maze comes in less than a minute. She groans loudly into Chloe’s mouth. She suddenly worries whether Trixie can hear, then remembers Trixie is with Dan this week. She comes three more times in the next two minutes, equally loudly. 

She pushes Chloe’s pajama top up and squeezes her tits, teases her nipples. Pinches them.

That sends Chloe over the edge. She cries out, drenches Maze’s thigh. Maze comes again. 

Then Chloe is collapsed on top of Maze, her hair tousled, her face sheened with sweat. 

“Good morning,” says Maze. “I really like waking up like that.”

Chloe tosses her mussed hair back and looks at Maze, smiling slightly. “Good morning, Maze. A little cuddle before breakfast?”

Maze wonders when she’s going to wake up from this very nice dream.

But this time it’s not a dream.

They cuddle for a while, and have breakfast together. And, to Maze’s delight, they _don’t talk about it._ She simply can’t imagine anything better. 

She knows they’ll have to talk eventually. But it’s sweet to just enjoy what happened, for a little while.


	13. Chapter 13

On her way to Linda’s, Maze again tries to remember the social rules for telling people you’re fucking that you’re also fucking other people. 

Usually they start their dates by catching up. Maze figures she’ll bring it up then.

Today, Linda has other ideas for how to start the date. Ideas that mean Maze doesn’t get a chance to bring up anything, because from the moment she walks in the door of Linda’s office, her mouth is being used for other purposes.

Kissing. Nibbling. Licking. Sucking. Moaning as Linda uses her mouth in the same ways on Maze. Finally screaming into a pillow as Linda brings her, again and again. 

Wow, when Linda decides she’s ready to do more than kissing, she doesn’t mess around. Maze loves it.

Maze is lying in Linda’s arms, naked, wet, exhausted, again wondering how long she should wait to bring up fucking Chloe.

She figures she should probably wash her face clean of Linda’s sex juices first.

Eventually they rouse themselves sufficiently to go get dinner and drinks. Afterward, they arrive back at the same pocket park where it all started, the friends-with-benefits experiment.

Maze can tell there’s something on Linda’s mind. 

“I have something to tell you,” they both say simultaneously. 

They both laugh. But the tension ratchets up a tad.

“You go first,” says Linda. 

Maze can’t think of a comfortable way to say it. She doesn’t know if she’s breaking the rules. So she just says it.

“I told Chloe about my feelings for her. And I thought she rejected me.”

Linda opens her mouth, but Maze holds her hand up.

“And then she cried and asked me to just sleep with her and hold her. Because she was upset about Lucifer and Candy. So I did.”

Maze keeps her hand raised.

“And then in the morning she kind of...sleep-fucked me? And then we cuddled and had breakfast. But we didn’t talk about it.” She’s babbling now. “And I thought you should know, but I don’t know if I told you right and I feel bad that I didn’t tell you before we...but you...I’m sorry, I’m not good at saying no to people I want who just _take_ me...oh Linda, the way you just took me was so hot.” Maze grabs Linda’s hair and kisses her hard and deep.

Linda leans into the kiss for a while, but then pulls back. 

Maze’s heart? A couple of days ago, it had sunk all the way to her feet. Earlier today, it felt like it was bathing in soda-bubbles. And now it’s in her _mouth._ Replacing Linda’s tongue. Maze will never get used to these human feelings and peripatetic organs.

“Wow, Maze.” Linda looks equal parts mussed, flustered, and excited. “Where do I begin? First of all, thank you for telling me.”

“I didn’t do it wrong?”

“I don’t think there’s a Miss Manners guideline for this conversation,” Linda says. And then starts to explain who Miss Manners is, but Maze interrupts her.

“I know all about her. Lucifer owns all her books and says if people only tried to follow those rules instead of the ones in the Bible, the world would be a much better place.”

Linda laughs. “He’s right. Anyway, you did fine with how you told me.”

There’s a little more room in Maze’s mouth now, as her heart starts to inch toward its usual spot. A cool breeze blows through the park, ruffling her hair.

“Second, how do you feel about what happened between you and Chloe?”

“It was really nice, but...why do I keep feeling like there’s a weapon hidden somewhere?”

“You mean, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop?”

“What?”

“It’s an idiom that means something bad might happen as part of something good that happened.”

“Close enough. Linda, what should I do?”

“I think you should talk about it with Chloe.” Linda holds up a hand to forestall Maze’s objection. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. But you need to tell her how you felt about what happened, and what you want to happen next.”

“So, I tell her it was hot and I feel confused and I’d like to do it some more?” 

“That sounds good.”

“But what if—“

“Maze, I don’t know how she’ll respond. I can’t go through every ‘what if’ with you. You’ll just have to play it by ear.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a music metaphor. Would a fighting metaphor work better? ‘Roll with the punches’.”

“Oh! Yeah! OK. Thanks, Linda.” 

Maze looks up at the sky. Maze never saw stars until she came to L.A. They still fascinate her. Her heart is back where it belongs but it feels bigger. Like it’s filled with... “Soda-bubbles!” Maze blurts.

“Soda-bubbles?” 

“That’s how I feel when I’m with you, Linda.”

“I make you want to burp?”

Maze tries to explain. 

“So, soda bubbles means you feel happy.”

“Yes. You make me happy, Linda.”

Linda’s eyes suddenly fill with tears. She turns away from Maze and starts looking in her purse. She finds tissues, but she fumbles the package and it falls to the ground. She growls. 

Maze pushes her handkerchief at Linda. “Here.” 

“I didn’t take you as a handkerchief kind of girl — um, I mean demon,” says Linda, wiping her eyes. Maze thinks she’s trying to smile, but her face looks really weird because she’s also crying.

“I’m not. But a lady gave it to me the other day. It was the first time my heart broke.” 

“Maze! The first time?”

“It was the day Lucifer learned Chloe was made by God. He was so hurt and angry, and he wouldn’t listen to me. And his Dad knows that’s happened a lot. He’s always getting angry and he never listens. But this time it was different somehow. His pain just hurt me so much. And the pain I knew Chloe would feel, because I knew he would also take it out on her. I started crying. Linda, I had never wept tears before. I didn’t even know what was happening to me. And a lady sat next to me and gave me this handkerchief and said I sounded like my heart was broken.”

Maze’s eyes feel prickly again, like that time. “Linda, is your heart broken?” she cries. “Did I hurt you?” And suddenly tears start coming out of Maze’s eyes too. 

Linda puts her arms around Maze and kisses her hair. “You didn’t hurt me, Maze. Humans don’t cry only because we’re sad. Sometimes we cry because we’re happy. Or relieved. Or angry. Or frustrated. Or confused. Or feeling a lot of different things at once.”

“I’m glad I’m not human. I feel those things almost all the time. If I cried over all of them, my body would run out of water.”

Linda makes a noise that’s in between a laugh and a sob.

“OK, which is it then?” Maze demands. “Why are you crying now?”

Linda blows her nose. She’s starting to look a little more like herself again. “Because you said I make you happy.”

“You need to cry about that? Why?” Maze demands urgently. 

Instead of answering right away, Linda keeps moving around, as if she can’t find a comfortable position, and fussing with her hair. Maze wants to scream in frustration. _I need to know, damnit!_

Finally Linda says “Before I answer that, let's go back to my office.”

Maze doesn’t understand it, but there’s not much she understands these days, it seems. She swallows her frustration and follows along.

Back at Linda’s office, Maze expects them to go into the bedroom, but Linda sits on the couch and gestures for Maze to join her. She takes Maze’s hands in both of her own. It feels stiff and formal. 

“Maze, remember I said I have something to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what you told me might complicate things, but you know what? I’m going to pretend you didn’t tell me that thing. We can sort all that out later.”

“OK.”

“Remember when you wanted us to be friends-with-benefits, and I said I am sometimes tender-hearted around sex, so I needed to go slow?”

“Yep.”

“Going slow didn’t work,” says Linda.

“Didn’t work?”

“Oh Linda, just out with it,” Linda mutters to herself. “Maze, I have feelings for you.”

“I know that! You like me,” says Maze. “That’s what friends do, right? Like each other?”

“I like you. And over the past little while, since we began…kissing, I started having more feelings for you.”

“You mean, ‘dating-type feelings’?” says Maze. “Making-breakfast-together feelings? Crush feelings?”

“Yes, Maze. Along with ‘I want to be a person you call at two a.m. if you’re hurting’ feelings. ‘I want to be a person you call if you’re laughing about some silly thing’ feelings. ‘I want us to share little things about our lives’ feelings. And of course, ‘I think all day and night about fucking you’ feelings.”

“Mm, I have _those_ feelings too,” says Maze, smiling and licking her lips. She brings Linda’s mouth to hers. Linda kisses her back, desperately, but then pushes her away. “I want you, a lot. But I need us to finish this conversation first.”

“OK.”

“So, what do you think?”

“About your having those feelings for me?” Maze ponders. “I like it. I’m fine with it. Unless it makes things weird for you.”

Linda looks frustrated. “OK, it’s my mistake for not being more direct,” she grumbles. “Maze, do you feel any of those things about me? Or only about Chloe?”

Maze goes inside herself where she has stowed her feelings about Linda, the ones that didn’t fit friends-who-kiss. 

It takes a while for them to come out. Maze isn’t used to talking about things she wishes would happen. Why should she? No one’s ever cared about what she wishes before. She’s used to keeping wishes inside until she can do something to make them happen.

She takes Linda’s hand and talks to it. It’s less scary than looking into Linda’s eyes.

“I sometimes think about spending a day with you,” she says. “Do you want to hear about it?”

“Yes, I do.”

“We meet in the afternoon at your office, and we fuck for a few hours.” 

Maze licks the palm of Linda’s hand.

“Then we’re hungry. We go out for dinner and drinks. Then we take a long walk. Maybe you tell me about what it was like doing One Eight Hundred Professor Feelgood. Maybe I tell you about what the other demons and I used to do for fun in Hell.” 

Maze closes her eyes, to better picture the fantasy. 

“Then we go to your house. We fuck each other to sleep. We sleep naked in each other’s arms, all sticky and sweaty.”

She finally feels safe enough to look at Linda’s face.

“We wake up and cuddle and have breakfast together. We take a shower and have a quickie while we’re in there. One for the road. Then you go fix people’s heads and I go catch criminals. And we’re both happy, because we know we are going to do it again soon.”

She touches her lips to Linda’s mouth. 

“Sometimes I think about us hanging out with friends together, like Ella and Chloe and Dan and Amenadiel. And they say ‘Maze and Linda are dating.’ Sometimes I think about us taking trips together. Or going to sex parties together. I think about how you’ll teach me about humans and I can teach you about knives. Or knots. Maybe you give me the key to your house, and you come home one day and find me in your bed, wearing your favorite strap-on.” 

Linda closes her eyes. “Oh Maze. That all sounds so wonderful,” she says. “That makes me realize how lonely I’ve been.”

“So you would like us to do those things too?”

“Yes, I would.” 

“But what I told you about Chloe makes it complicated? How?” 

Linda gets that look on her face that means _Oh right. She’s not from around here._ “What if Chloe decides she has feelings for you too?" Linda asks “Would you want to stop fucking me? Or kissing me? Or spending entire days together?”

“No, why would I?”

“What if she wants to be monogamous?”

“I would think that’s a little weird, but I don’t see how it would affect you and me.”

Linda giggles. Maze doesn’t know why, but she decides to ask about it later. “I meant, what if she wants _you_ to be monogamous?”

“What?” cries Maze. “And give up fucking you? And other people? No!”

Linda laughs again. “A lot of people prefer their sexual relationships to be monogamous.”

“That’s fine for them, but they’re not fucking a demon, are they? I’ve never met any human who can keep up with how much sex I want.”

Linda laughs some more.

“Wait, would _you_ want to be monogamous?” Maze asks. “Would you want me to be?”

“I might want to. But I wouldn’t ask you to be.”

“So, is it OK? Can we more-than-kiss again?” Maze presses.

“If you’re up for it after everything we did earlier, I am too.”

“If I’m up for it,” Maze says, and laughs wickedly. _“IF.”_

Maze and Linda fuck each other to sleep in Linda’s office. At least they make it to the bedroom first.


	14. Chapter 14

Maze keeps trying to find a good time to talk to Chloe. There never is one. Chloe is acting more and more weird around her. One morning, she even catches Chloe trying to sneak out of the house without being seen. In an attempt to get back into Chloe's good graces, she helps her set up a dinner date with a witness she wants to surreptitiously interview. Because she can't help being nervous, she makes a lot of salacious jokes about the date. She can tell Chloe is annoyed by them, but she can’t seem to stop herself.

Amenadiel appears unexpectedly during the dinner with Chloe’s date/suspect, Dr Garrity. He’s acting really weird too. Maze can tell that Chloe’s this close to throwing them both out of the house, so she pulls Amenadiel aside, asking him to help with the dishes.

“I came to see you because there’s not much time before we’re gone,” he tells Maze. He picks up the dishes she has tossed arbitrarily into the dishwasher, and tidily rinses them in the sink. Such a goody two-shoes. Except when he's trying to assassinate his own brother. But he hasn’t done that for a while.

“On a vacation?” Maze asks, sipping her wine. 

“Oh no. Lucifer didn’t tell you?” Amenadiel’s face falls. He looks as guilty as a dog caught chewing on its owner’s slipper. “We’re all going back to Heaven.”

That moment in the hospital, when she thought she would lose him forever, comes back to Maze. And all the pain comes with it. Compounded by the knowledge that this time Lucifer is leaving her on purpose. Going somewhere she can never go. And it looks as though he was planning to go without even saying goodbye.

Sometime later that night, Maze is lying on the bed in her room, staring at the ceiling. 

Usually when she’s upset, she wants to move. To train, or fight, or run if she can’t do either of those. This time she feels, not like her heart is broken, or like it’s sunk into her feet, but like it’s a massive boulder that she’s crushed under.

There’s a brusque knock on the door. Chloe is in her room before Maze can say “Come in.” Mazes wishes she had locked the door. But Chloe never comes into her room, citing “too many bizarre sex toys I can’t unsee” as the reason.

Chloe stands over Maze, with a frustrated look on her face. “Maze, we need to talk,” she says. 

Maze can’t bring herself to even look at Chloe.

“Are you drunk?” Chloe demands.

Maze laughs hollowly. “I wish I were.”

Chloe gives a martyred sigh. “OK, can we talk then?”

“I’m not stopping you,” says Maze.

Chloe sits on the edge of the bed. Out of the corner of her eye, Maze sees her face cycle through several emotions. Anger, guilt, pity. Maybe regret. “Maze, I guess I owe you an apology,” she says. “Probably that’s why you’ve been in my business so much over the past little while. And so obsessed with having sex with me, or watching me have sex, or whatever. It really embarrassed me in front of Dr Garrity. But it’s my fault. We should have talked right after it happened.”

“You mean the morning we fucked,” says Maze dully. “I’ve been _trying_ to talk to you about it ever since.”

“You have? I’m sorry. For all of it.” Chloe puts her face in her hands. “For using you and then not talking to you about it afterward. I was just...”

“Yeah, I know. It’s Lucifer’s fault,” says Maze, still deadpan. 

“That’s not what I was going to say, but I _was_ upset with him. I felt so alone.”

“I’m familiar with the feeling,” says Maze, still not looking at Chloe. “Being upset with Lucifer and feeling alone.”

Chloe doesn’t respond to that. “And then you said you had feelings for me, and you were so comforting, and I grabbed onto you like a lifeline.”

“But once you’re back on shore, the lifeline is just a piece of rope. You don’t need it any more,” says Maze with bitterness.

Chloe winces. “No, Maze, it’s not like that. You’re my friend. I care about you.” 

Maze believes her. But it doesn’t matter now. 

“...But it was a mistake for me to have sex with you,” Chloe continues. “I don’t have romantic feelings for you. And I don’t feel comfortable with sex in other kinds of relationships.”

“All right. I’ll stop bringing it up. And it won’t happen again,” says Maze. “At least, not until the next time you ask me into your bed, and then ask me to kiss you. I’m not a saint.”

“I won’t do that again, I promise,” says Chloe. 

Maze looks into Chloe’s face then. She sees pain there. Guilt that she hurt a friend. The failure of her witness interview. Her continued confusion about how Lucifer is treating her. Maze realizes then that when Lucifer leaves for Heaven, Chloe will also suffer. If he couldn’t bring himself to tell Maze, he surely wouldn’t have told Chloe either. 

The boulder that is Maze’s heart suddenly opens into tenderness. 

“For the record, it was one of the sweetest nights of my life,” Maze tells Chloe. “To hold you, watch you sleep. To wake up to your kisses. You are the first hum— person I’ve felt this way about.” 

Maze has never said anything like this to anyone.

Chloe’s eyes soften for a moment, and then she’s back to looking guilty and miserable. “That’s beautiful, Maze. And I am sad I don’t feel that way about you. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever feel that way again about anyone.”

Maze has to get away from Chloe. Maze is glad Chloe hasn’t noticed anything is wrong with her. She can’t tell Chloe what’s bothering her, because Chloe doesn’t believe Lucifer’s the Devil, or any of the rest of it. And she’s not about to out him the way he outed her to Linda.

Linda.

Thinking about Linda is like surfacing after a long dive and taking a huge breath of air.

“I’m going out,” she tells Chloe.

“Really? It’s late.”

“Really.”

“Will you be here for breakfast?” asks Chloe.

“Not if I can help it,” Maze replies. She gets up and starts putting on her shoes.

“I’m sorry, Maze.”

Maze gives Chloe a peck on the cheek in passing. “It’s OK, Chloe. I just remembered there’s someone I want to see.”

Once she’s outside, she takes her phone out of her pocket.

“Hello, Maze?” comes Linda’s half-sleepy voice.

“Hello, Linda. I’m sorry I’m calling so late. Can I come over?”

“Certainly. Are you all right?”

“No. But I think I’ll feel better once I’m with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Mild dubcon - Making out and sex while under the influence of alcohol, sleepy morning sex, all among people not in established relationships.


End file.
